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Bridge Termed ‘successful result’

Wonderland Pedestrian Bridge designer Miguel Rosales poses in front of the finished product last week while looking over some early renderings of the project. He said he is pleased with the final result and hopes it will help to bring development to the area.

Bridge designer Miguel Rosales has increasingly seen his thumb print all over Boston, and last Thursday he visited Revere Beach to check out his latest finished product – the Wonderland Pedestrian Bridge.

His reaction; thumb’s up.

“I think it is a very successful result,” he said. “It looks very modern and slender as I had pictured it. It definitely creates a new energy for the area. I think it all worked out very well with the bridge and plaza. I just hope it will help bring new development to the area to complement the design. It wasn’t really a big investment and it will last a long time here.”

Rosales is the designer of the Bunker Hill Zakim Bridge in downtown Boston, and the similarities between it and the Wonderland bridge are no accident.

He has previously said he hoped to create a mini-Zakim Bridge here to bring continuity to the whole Greater Boston area. Currently, his design for the Esplanade Bridge on Storrow Drive in Boston is going out to bid. He is also working on drawings for anew bridge on North Washington Street in Boston – an old rusty bridge that connects Charlestown to the North End.

Rosales said the Revere Beach venture didn’t come without a lot of give and take. He said he fought with contractors about the railings and about painting the cable supports. However, in the end he is convinced that his vision on paper has been perfectly executed in reality.

“We did have to battle with the contractor, but everything finally got done right,” he said. “It was hard to get there, but I am really happy with it.”

Robert Johnson

Rosales IS NOT the designer of the BHZB. Why does this crap continue year after year?

JC

Miguel Rosales was the Lead Bridge Architect for the Zakim Bridge. He collaborated with Christian Menn who prepared the initial structural concept and HNTB the Engineers of Record.

Crullet Guy

Skateboarders are destroying the upper deck of the bridge. They broke all of the light fixtures and they are destroying the bricks and stonework. Its a real shame that anti-skateboarding devices were not part of the design…

drensber

The big shame really is that the city of Revere just had $20M spent on this project and chooses to use it for absolutely nothing. Having the Farmer’s market on the plaza was a great idea, but it was so poorly planned and advertised that even people who commute by Blue Line didn’t know that it was on the plaza, or even how to navigate all of the construction fences to get to the plaza. Since the plaza is not utilized for anything else, why _wouldn’t_ you expect it to be used as a glorified skate park?